


Lion's Claws

by Kendrene



Category: Game of Thrones (TV), The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Biting, Breathplay, Dirty Talk, Dubious Consent, F/F, Implied/Referenced Incest, Lannister!Clarke, Safeword Use, Sexual Roleplay, Smut, Stark!Lexa, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, enemies to enemies with benefits, regarding the Lannisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-27 07:25:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12076317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendrene/pseuds/Kendrene
Summary: Before the war of the Seven Kingdoms, Lannisters and Starks mingle at a feast. When Lexa and Clarke meet desire enters the fray and old alliegiances are tested.ORThe one where Lexa and Clarke sleep with the enemy.





	Lion's Claws

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aspidities](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aspidities/gifts).



> Inspired by fanart made by @madebybon I saw on Tumblr. 
> 
> For Aspidities - she'll know why. (and if you are a Korrasami fan do yourself a favor and read her stuff)
> 
> Please, as the one shot features degrading dirty talk and rough sex, consider the tags carefully before reading. Thank you.
> 
> (and in case anyone wants to try breathplay, for the love of all that is holy, don't start with a belt)

“ _A coat of gold, a coat of red_  
_A lion still has claws_  
_And mine are long and sharp, my Lord_ _  
As long and sharp as yours_ ”

\- The Rains Of Castamere -

 

Lexa wanted to go home.

She wasn’t much for balls in general, and if she really must attend one, she certainly would not pick a Lannister feast.

But, as her father Ryland had pointed out, nobody refused an invitation from Lord Tywin and lived to tell the tale. The relationship between Stark and Lannister was fragile enough without adding strain. A strain that Eddard Stark - her father’s cousin - certainly would not appreciate.

“Here she comes again.” She was rudely jerked back to the ballroom’s riot of red and gold by Anya’s elbow digging not so subtly into her ribs.

“I think I am going to dance this reel after all,” her sister moved a step away, and Lexa bit her tongue to not remark on the fact the hired musicians were playing a completely different type of dance.

“Stay.” She pleaded instead, chagrined at sounding so desperate. Anya just shot her a smirk, swatting away her grasping hand.

“Oh no. The Lady Clarke’s tongue cuts worse than a Dornish blade. Hard pass sister, but you enjoy yourself.” Anya winked and added, “she’s taken a shine on you it seems. Although I doubt that’ll make her gentle.”

Then the older Stark was gone and Lexa managed a groan before she had to turn, what she hoped would pass for a warm smile on her lips.

“You look like you ate something that disagreed with you.” Lady Clarke deadpanned, cutting her pretence to bloody ribbons. “That face of yours is too stoic by half for the smile to be genuine.” Lexa opened her mouth to protest innocence, but the damn woman rolled right over her.

“Don’t worry, I am not offended.” Before Lexa could react, the Lady’s arm had linked around her own, “truth be told, if I could choose I would be anywhere but here.”

She cast a look towards the raised podium where Tywin and his spawn sat, entertaining the main Stark party. There was a coldness to her sapphire gaze that confounded Lexa, and she wondered if the Lord of Casterly Rock was aware of animosity within his own clan.

But surely she was mistaken. After all, under the dazzling light of a multitude of candles things could easily appear exxagerated when they weren’t, and no Lannister would ever wear their sentiment so openly. Especially not when entertaining a rival family.

“I envy you, Lady Alexandra.” The Lannister woman continued, once they had left the revellers truly and far behind, “I truly do.”

Her expression must have slipped within the realms of shock, because the blonde laughed softly, reaching out to pat her cheek.

“Lexa.” The brunette managed after a moment, striving to regain her balance, “just Lexa, please.”

“Then you must call me Clarke.” The blonde nodded, the matter obviously settled in her mind, “I may have laughed, but I mean my words. I am envious of you.”

Lexa titled her head, eyes roaming Clarke’s face in search of the lie. She found none, and it unsettled her - why would a Lannister ever admit of being jealous of a Stark?

She knew what people thought of Northerners below the Neck - that they were bloodthirsty savages who laughed too loud, drank far too much and had no manners to speak of.

In the end she gave a little shrug, resigned to the fact she would not make heads or tails of this woman.

Not in a lifetime.

Lexa had to admit that Clarke was beautiful. She was dressed in her house colors, but while some of her relatives whom the brunette had spotted at the feast were flaunting the Lannister’s famed riches, the blonde looked almost somber in her simply-cut gown.

The dress’ neckline was still low enough to expose a good portion of bosom, true - more than low enough to make Lexa’s cheeks heat up when she allowed her gaze to linger a fraction too long, but Clarke’s hair was simply done, only a narrow braid keeping wheat-colored strands away from her brow while the rest of it flowed freely. And where Lady Cersei had displayed enough emeralds to blind the unwary with their inner light, the only jewelry Clarke wore was a narrow chain of gold hugging her hips.

“You don’t believe me.” Clarke murmured, her husky voice sending a shiver down Lexa’s spine, “but look at you,” she gestured at Lexa’s simple garb, including her fur cloak and the ceremonial sword hanging at her belt with a swipe of her hand, “your father let you pursue your... _inclinations_ , while I…”

Genuine pain writhed at the bottom of Clarke’s eyes, darkening them to storm-blue, and Lexa made to touch her shoulder, the girl’s obvious upset effortlessly dismantling her caution.

Before her fingers could brush skin however, Clarke had whirled away, gliding along the flagstones of the corridor so quickly that Lexa had to trot in order to keep up.

There was anger now between them, a heavy undercurrent thickening the air. And despite knowing that she was not the target Lexa shivered, reminded of the prowling lionesses she had seen on tapestries adorning the castle’s walls.

“You mentioned not wanting to be here.” It was weak blandishment she knew, and she called herself ten kinds of fool for it. Lexa was well educated - her father’s Maester had seen to that - but Clarke’s proximity had her tongue tied, and her brain at a loss.

She felt ungainly if compared to the other woman, even though both of them were nobly born. A Stark no longer, but a mud-footed peasant who had sneaked into the feast by aid of subterfuge, and would be kicked out once her deceit was brought to light.

“Of course I want to be sold to an insipid man and be mounted like a cow.” Clarke’s tongue was back to flailing her alive, each word spat her way like crossbow’s bolt, “who wouldn’t want _that_.”

Lexa cleared her throat - for the mention of mounting and breeding brought several vivid images to the forefront of her mind.

Clarke rolled her eyes at her, clearly annoyed she wasn’t following the conversation well enough for her liking. To her defence, Lexa was a bit...distracted, and when the blonde looked on the verge of talking again, the little patience she had left evaporated.

“Clearly, you do not enjoy my company.” She tilted her chin upwards haughtily, letting a fury as cold as the northernmost wind seep into her eyes, until they may as well have been carved out of jade. “The Starks may be simpletons to you, but I am not willing to be your laughingstock.”

She almost turned and walked away then, but if she didn’t show manners, the Lannister girl would be proven right and emerge victorious from their bout.

“My Lady.” She bowed low, hand on her sword’s hilt, in a gesture so elegant that the Septa who had tried to cane her wildest traits out of her would have wept with pride.

Lexa whirled about and stalked down the hall, back towards the music and the much reviled feast. She hadn’t gone more than three paces before a hand grasped her by the forearm, stalling her retreat.

“I spoke out of turn.” The brunette turned, to find Clarke standing next to her and not quite meeting her eyes, “my frustrations got the best of me. I…”

The blonde let her go and opened her arms helplessly. “I never wanted this,” she plucked at her brocades fastidiously, “I never wanted to be a lady. But Mother wouldn’t hear of it.”

“What did you want to be?” Lexa asked, intrigued despite her misgivings.

“A healer.” The smile Clarke offered her was the saddest, loneliest one that had ever graced a mouth, “I wanted to help people. But that’s beneath a Lannister, apparently.”

“The truth is that I like you.” The blonde wielded her bluntness like a blade, and her direct words gutted Lexa clean. She was left reeling, her mind opening to possibility, her legs growing suddenly weak. If she was being honest with herself, she had felt something stir within her whenever Clarke had chosen to engage her that night.

A yearning for something she could not name, the whispered promise of a prize just beyond her reach.

She wondered if she was reading the other woman right, and if she would dare defy custom to take what she thought was being offered.

The wetness growing between her legs told her that she might.

“You are everything I wish I was,” Clarke’s fingers cupped her cheek and, when she didn’t move away, the blonde allowed herself to trace her jawline, “I am a lion caged in gold, and I envy your freedom.”

Lexa could barely breathe, the animosity that had clouded their air all night changing to something more primal. She was intoxicated with it.

“I want freedom,” Clarke whispered, so close to her now that Lexa could feel the blonde’s breath tickle her ear, “if only for a night. I want _you_.”

Lexa could barely nod at that, the fires of the anger Clarke had sparked deep within roaring higher with a different emotion. One that had her blood boil and her marrow sizzle. One that brought the darkest parts of her to the fore.

“Come.” Clarke read her like an open book, and didn’t even wait for her nod before they retraced their steps together, occasionally stealing glances at each other.

Lexa knew they were about to do something forbidden, something skirting along betrayal really, but if the rumors were anything to go by, the Lannisters were no strangers to even darker things.

They soon found themselves in a part of the castle that had clearly seen better days. The corridors were dusty and unadorned, and only one in three torches was lit, plunging the hall almost completely into shadow.

It was the ideal spot for a murder Lexa thought, and wondered if what she had understood Clarke meant would dissipate on the tip of a blade plunging into her heart. Legends told of people that entered the Lion’s den to never emerge again - she had heard them by the fires during the only winter of her life - and she regretted that etiquette had recommended she didn’t even keep a single dagger at her belt.

But all the Lannisters in attendance had been unarmed, and it wouldn’t do for a Stark to show that much mistrust.

“Here.”

Clarke had stopped in front of a nondescript door, not unlike a dozen others they had passed. Retrieving a key from the velvet pouch at her belt, the blonde thrust it into the lock. A mechanism opened with an audible _click_ and the door - which Lexa saw was made from the ironwood the Forrester guarded for her family - swung open on well oiled hinges.

Someone evidently came here often.

“When I have enough of my family I seek refuge here,” Clarke supplied before she could ask, “Uncle Tyrion suggested I carve a space out for myself. Casterly Rock is so big that some parts of it like this one have gone forgotten.”

“Then who lights the torches in the hallways?” Lexa asked, hesitantly stepping inside. The room was pitch black, and a strange, enticing smell wafted from within.

“The few, old servants that still remember. Once they die, nobody will.”

There was an odd sense of finality to Clarke’s words, and Lexa had to clasp her hands together lest they ball into tight fists. She had come to terms with her own death, yet still disliked to be reminded of its inevitable quality, when it came to those she could not save. She had lost too many people dear to her, to raiders coming from  beyond the wall and the harsh winter - the same one that had stolen her mother away when she was barely a toddler.

While she indulged in brooding thoughts, Clarke moved around the room with an assurance born from familiarity, and it wasn’t long before a scattering of candles were lit, illuminating a place that left Lexa open mouthed.

The room - a spacious apartment really - made her think of a forest. The walls were festooned with all manner of dried herbs, and more had been planted into vases - some as wide as the circumference of three men’s arms linked together. Plants grew from them, well tended bushes she didn’t quite recognize and even one or two of the pines that were so common around Winterfell and her father’s own caste.

“How do all these plants survive inside?” She went to brush her fingers through a bush with leaves of the deepest mauve she’d ever seen, but Clarke’s hand closed around her wrist, effectively stopping her.

“Don’t.” The blonde cautioned, tugging her away, “that one’s quite poisonous.”

They moved deeper within the room, to an area clear of vegetation, where a table sat, its surface covered with half rolled scrolls and open books.

“There’s plenty of light and air coming through the balcony,” Clarke explained, “Uncle had the windows widened for me by the masons, and then he got me the books.”

“It looks like at least one person in your family cares about your aspirations,” Lexa remarked drily, stepping closer to the table to peruse one of the books.

“He tries. But he can do nothing to prevent an arranged marriage. He can’t open the gates in the middle of the night to let me go. I know he wants to.” She concluded in a small voice.

Lexa’s heart ached for the other girl. She had known nothing but freedom all her life, and in her arrogance had thought every other noble child had it the same. But she should have known better. Her father had put a sword in her and Anya’s hands as soon as they had been old enough to understand the intrinsic dangers of a blade, declaring that the women of his household would go about their lives knowing how to defend themselves. Perhaps it had helped that he had three other children he could marry off for advantage, or maybe it had been due to his blood - his mother had been a Mormont and those women bore lances in war as often as not - but they had learned, and now Anya led her father’s house guards, with Lexa as her second.

And this room, this woman-made forest encased inside a decaying body of stone reminded Lexa of another place. The smithy in her father’s castle had been her own refuge, when the problems of her life seemed insurmountable. She would lose herself in the clang and hiss of red-hot metal, and the smith - a dark haired, Wildling born woman her father had saved from the fury of his subjects, would talk to her about the secrets of her art for hours.

She missed Raven’s friendship, and craved the heat of the smithy. And she thought she understood Clarke better now than she had at the start of their night.

“This is your sacred place.” She whispered reverently, watching Clarke step closer, “the place of your heart.”

“Yes.” The blonde inclined her head, and candlelight caught between her tresses. For a moment she looked haloed by the sun. “This is the place where I am free.”

The words were simple, and yet Lexa knew so many things were left unsaid. There was the wild glint of Clarke’s blue eyes for one thing, and then the way the blonde was unabashedly seizing every last inch of her. This was not only a place of freedom, but of wilderness. Of the body and the spirit - away from the laws that men had created to trap them.

Clarke was quietly offering her a place in this game, and all it took for it to start was a terse nod on Lexa’s part.

Of unspoken accord, they masked themselves in their families’ rivalry, with the difference that - away from prying eyes - they could do so knowing it was a pretense they didn’t truly feel.

Still the change was stunning, and in the time it took for them to take breath they were glaring daggers at each other, much like they had done back in the ballroom.

“Now that we’re alone you can confess,” Clarke leered in her direction, “is it true that Stark women lay in the woods with bear and wolf alike?”

Lexa snarled, taking a threatening step forward, “I have heard similar things of the Lannisters. Except instead of beasts they tend to fuck each other.”

The slap made her head turn and ears ring, although it wasn’t entirely unexpected. She saw the backswing just in time to stop it with her forearm, lunging to grab Clarke by her wrists before the blonde could hit her further.

They were almost nose to nose now, growling deep within their throats as they jostled for dominance. Wolf or lion, it wouldn’t matter in the end, for the entire thing was but a pantomime. A catharsis of the hurt their families had dealt each other, something others took with deadly seriousness and they were making light of by using it as kindle to fuel their lust.

“Don’t ever hit me again.”

“The Lannisters are used to hitting whores.”

And thus they spoke. And so they spoke, and soon enough they had no room for words, mouths pressed too hard together, teeth biting and tongues spurring the other on.

Clarke managed to tear one of her wrists free, nails leaving red welts from Lexa’s cheek down to the side of her neck.

The brunette pushed her away, her flesh already pulsing with the marking. They circled each other, Clarke haughty and cold, Lexa half crouched like a wolf on the hunt.

They were disheveled, hair in disarray and clothes askew, but it made no difference. What mattered most, was the next move.

“You speak so much of whores, I am starting to think it comes from familiarity.” Lexa yanked Clarke close to her, using her arms to trap the blonde’s at her sides and pushing her towards the table, “if I was born with cock I’d breed you for the bitch you are.”

Clarke’s eyes widened a fraction, and Lexa thought she’d gone too far, but then the blonde was rubbing up against her, a throaty moan falling from her lips.

“Does the… _absence_ of it mean that you can’t?” The girl snickered, managing to grab and squeeze between Lexa’s legs despite her position.

It was pressure enough to make the brunette gush, and the insinuation made her see red at the same time. She gave a savage howl and lifted Clarke off her feet, turning her around and slamming her into the table, unconcerned when the blonde’s collection of books tumbled to the floor.

“I’ll make you beg for it, cunt.” She bent over the blonde and bit her ear savagely, her hands tugging at the row of mother-of-pearl buttons that marched up the back of Clarke’s dress. THey didn’t give and she resorted to brute force, simply hooking her fingers in the fabric and _pulling_ , until everything came apart with the sound of ripping cloth. Lexa let the dress fall from her grasp and it parted like water, revealing that the Lannister girl was utterly naked underneath.

As if she’d come prepared.

Clarke moaned again as the cold air of the room kissed her skin, ass arching up against Lexa’s crotch. The brunette knew it was a ploy to get her to cave in and fuck the girl quicker, but when she had said she’d make Clarke beg for it she’d meant it.

She took one step back, and watched Clarke raise her head in puzzlement with a wry smile. Before the blonde could turn and ask her why she’d stopped, she brought her arm down, an open-handed blow reddening the porcelain perfection of her ass.

More blows followed relentlessly, and Clarke writhed under the deluge, the most delicious sounds emerging from her throat.

In the light of the candles, and in that particular position, Lexa could see between her legs clearly. Amid golden curls, Clarke’s folds were swollen and glistening and, as the brunette watched enraptured, a clear string of arousal snaked down the blonde’s inner thigh.

She had done things like these only in her wildest dreams, but command was to her like a second skin, and so she used it, her voice cracking against Clarke’s skin as effectively as a riding crop.

“You are so wet,” Lexa let one of her hands fall between Clarke’s legs, fingers teasing her outer folds without quite going where the blonde so clearly wanted them. “I know what you want, but you will have to beg me.”

“I’d rather fuck all of my father’s men than have a Stark inside me!” Clarke hissed, trying to wiggle out from under her.

Lexa caught a flailing elbow into her side and groaned, blinking tears of pain away before using her weight to pin the other girl down. She put a hand around the back of Clarke’s neck, exerting just enough pressure to make the blonde stay still, while her other hand went to her belt.

She undid it quickly, sword clattering to the floor, then took it off from around her waist and brought it around, deftly winding a part of it around Clarke’s throat.

Bending down, chest pressed into Clarke’s back, she nuzzled against the blonde’s ear to get her attention.

“If it starts to hurt or you want me to stop,” she admonished, “say _Tywin_ , His name ought to be enough to get me out of whatever I am doing.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Clarke laughed, a rushing sound like that of a summer waterfall.

“That...should do the trick.” Clarke wheezed in between bursts of laughter. Lexa grinned, pressing a kiss to the blonde’s flushed cheek. She tried not to think about the fact that it was probably the first and last time she’d hear Clarke laugh that way.

Regret was for the morrow, and the days to come.

“You speak too much.” Once the laughter had subsided, Lexa resumed their act. She tightened the belt enough that Clarke struggled for breath, holding the ends of leather in one hand while the other went back between the blonde’s legs. When she finally let the belt slacken she heard Clarke suck air in greedily, air that was promptly knocked right out of the blonde when she pinched her clit.

Lexa was no stranger to sex, having spent more than one night in the stables with Costia, one of her family’s stable hands. It had lasted for a summer, what affection there had been between them, before Anya caught them in the act. Her sister had said nothing to their father, simply advising Lexa to be more careful, but Costia had been discreetly sent away soon after that.

And from the way Clarke eagerly ground against her hand, Lexa could tell it wasn’t the blonde’s first ride either. Her slit was so drenched by arousal that the brunette’s fingers were inside her almost before she could realize.

She pulled back again, eliciting a whine, before her fingers returned to Clarke’s clit, in a crescendo of soft flicks and harsh pinching.  

She used the belt whenever Clarke cursed at her to fuck her, to _do it already_ and make her come. And ever so slowly, like a castle’s wall crumbling under siege, the blonde gave way, her words of defiance melting into mewling sounds of need.

“Please.” The word exploded from the blonde’s chest right when Lexa had started to despair that she would break her, “please Lexa...oh Gods...please…”

“Please _what_?” Lexa allowed herself a smile of victory, a mix of satisfaction and awe swirling in her gut. Clarke was offering surrender, and the brunette knew it was a precious gift. Something to be cared for and revered, and she was honored to witness the collapse.

“Please _fuck me_!”

“So now you want this Stark inside you, uh?” Lexa sneered, fingers moving to oblige, “you’re nothing but a slut.”

“Yes!” Clarke’s agreement turned into a scream as the brunette entered her ruthlessly, three fingers slamming into her without much warning, “your slut... “ There were more words, but they were lost amidst the howling, and Lexa didn’t care.

She let the belt fall away, discarding it without a second thought, and placed her now free hand on Clarke’s hip, steadying her as her fingers pumped a rapid tempo within the blonde’s heat. She wasn’t aiming to build the blonde up slowly - rather she wanted to tear release form her, like a famished wolf would tear a deer open at the jugular.

But the other girl didn’t seem to mind, Lexa’s name cascading from her lips like a prayer as she edged closer to demise.

And when it finally arrived it was with a savage twist of Lexa’s fingers, the only warning the brunette had a mad fluttering of muscles, before Clarke’s cunt clenched down around her, effectively trapping her hand in.

The blonde came undone with a cacophony of whimpered pleas for mercy, her body arching off the table and into Lexa.

For her part, the brunette was almost swept along, anchoring herself by pressing her lips to Clarke’s shoulder, biting into her flesh.

They lay like that, Clarke too spent to try and move from under her, Lexa too lost in the aftershocks of the blonde’s orgasm that were racing up her arm.

When they did move, it was to find each other’s lips and exchange a sated kiss. But there was a twinkle in Clarke’s eye, and Lexa was not surprised when she was pushed down to the floor and straddled.

And this time she went willingly, because she had learned - by observing the packs of wolves that roamed the woods back home - that dominance and submission were two sides of the same coin.

***********************

The next morning found her riding out of Lannisport with the sun barely tinging Casterly Rock’s walls in rose-gold, Anya slumped on the horse at her side.

Her sister clearly had had too much to drink, but when she inquired about Lexa’s face it became clear her wits were not completely dulled by alcohol.

“What happened to your cheek?” Lexa touched the aching nail marks absentmindedly. “It looks like you’ve been in a scuffle. You have _not_ been in a scuffle, right Lexa?”

“You could say I came across a lion.” She replied flatly, before digging her spurs into her mount’s flank.

She left Anya behind, and rode to the head of the column, nodding to Lord Eddard and her father as she went, but without stopping, until she had nothing but empty road around her.

A cold wind had picked up, bringing with it the brine of the open sea and she was grateful, for she could pretend it was the cause for the tears that fell unbidden down her cheeks.

“Would you betray your family for me?” Clarke had asked as they had parted ways, the castle still asleep around them.

“Would you betray yours?” She’d countered numbly.

The sad smile they’d shared between them, had been answer enough.

**Author's Note:**

> [follow me on TUMBLR for more stories](https://kendrene.tumblr.com/)


End file.
